running out of their camp to meet and embrace one another, and the deplorable ftory of Vulteius. The Fifth Book affords us a fine account of the oracle of Delphi, its origin, the manner of its delivering anfwers, and the reafon of its then filence. Then, upon the occafion of a mutiny in Cæfar's camp near Placentia, in his manner of paffing the Adriatic in a fmall boat, amidst the ftorm I hinted at, he has given us the nobleft and best image of that great man. But what affects me above all, is the parting of Pompey and Cornelia, in the end of the Book. It has fomething in it as moving and tender, as ever was felt, or perhaps imagined.

In the defcription of the witch Erictho, in the Sixth Book, we have a beautiful picture of horror; for even works of that kind have their beauties in poetry, as well as in painting. The Seventh Book is moft taken up with what relates to the famous battle of Pharfalia, which decided the fate of Rome. It is fo related, that the reader may rather think himself a spectator of, or even engaged in, the battle, than fo remote from the age in which it was fought. There is, towards the end of this Book, a noble majestic defcription of the general Conflagration, and of that laft catastrophe, which muft put an end to this frame of heaven and earth. To this is added, in the most elevated ftyle, his fentiments of the Immortality of

"the Soul," and of rewards and punishments after this life. All these are touched with the niceft delicacy of expreffion and thought, efpecially that about the uni.

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verfal Conflagration; and agrees with what we find of it in Holy Writ. In fo much that I am willing to believe Lucan might have conversed with St. Peter at Rome, if it be true he was ever there; or he might have feen that Epiftle of his, wherein he gives us the very fame idea of it.

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In the Eighth Book, our paffions are again touched with the misfortunes of Cornelia and Pompey; but -especially with the death, and unworthy funeral, of the latter. In this Book is likewife drawn, with the greatest art, the character of young Ptolemy and his minifters; particularly that of the villain Photinus is exquifitely expofed in his own fpeech in council.

In the Ninth Book, after the apotheofis of Pompey, Cato is introduced as the fittest man after him to head the caufe of Liberty and Rome. This Book is the longeft, and, in my opinion, the moft entertaining in the whole poem. The march of Cato through the deferts of Libya, affords a noble and agreeable variety of matter; and the virtue of his hero, amidst thefe diftreffes through which he leads him, feems every where to deferve those raptures of praife he beftows upon him. Add to this, the artful descriptions of the various poisons with which these deserts abounded, and their different effects upon human bodies, than which nothing can be more moving or poetical.

But Cato's anfwer to Labienus in this Book, upon his defiring him to confult the oracle of Jupiter Hammon about the event of the civil war, and the fortune of Rome, is a mafter-piece not to be equalled.

All the attributes of God, fuch as his omnipotence, his prefcience, his juftice, his goodness, and his unfearchable decrees, are painted in the most awful and the strongest colours, and fuch as may make Chriftians themselves blufh, for not coming up to them in moft of their writings upon that subject. I know not but St. Evremont has carried the matter too far, when, in mentioning this paffage, he concludes, "If all the "ancient poets had fpoke as worthily of the oracles "of their gods, he should make no fcruple to prefer "them to the divines and philofophers of our time. "We may fee, fays he, in the concourfe of so many people, that came to confult the oracle of "Hammon, what effect a public opinion can pro"duce, where zeal and fuperftition mingle together. "We may fee in Labienus, a pious fenfible man, "who to his refpect for the gods, joins the confide"ration and esteem we ought to preferve for virtue in

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good men. Cato is a religious fevere philofopher, "weaned from all vulgar opinions, who entertains "thofe lofty thoughts of the gods, which pure un"debauched reafon and a true elevated knowledge "can give us of them; every thing here, fays St. "Evremont, is poetical, every thing is confonant "to truth and reason. It is not poetical upon the "fcore of any ridiculous fiction, or for fome extra"vagant hyperbole, but for the daring greatness and

majefty of the language, and for the noble eleva"tion of the discourse. It is thus, adds he, that poetry is the language of the gods, and

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poets are wife; and it is fo much the greater won"der to find it in Lucan, fays he, because it is "neither to be met with in Homer nor Virgil." I remember Montaigne, who is allowed by all to have been an admirable judge in these matters, prefers Lucan's character of Cato to Virgil, or any other of the ancient poets. He thinks all of them flat and languishing, but Lucan's much more strong, though overthrown by the extravagancy of his own force.

The Tenth Book, imperfect as it is, gives us, among other things, a view of the Egyptian magnificence, with a curious account of the then-received opinions of the increase and decrease of the river Nile. From the variety of the ftory, and many other particulars I need not mention in this fhort account, it may easily appear, that a true hiftory may be a romance or fiction, when the author makes choice of a subject that affords fo many and fo furprizing incidents.

Among the faults that have been laid to Lucan's charge, the most justly imputed are thofe of his ftile; and indeed how could it be otherwife? Let us but remember the imperfect ftate, in which his fudden and immature death left the Pharfalia; the design itself being probably but half finished, and what was writ of it, but flightly, if at all, revised. We are told, it is true, he either corrected the three first books himfelf, or his wife did it for him, in his own life-time. Be it fo but what are the corrections of a lady, or a young man of fix and twenty, to thofe he might have made at forty, or a more advanced age? Virgil,

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the most correct and judicious poet that ever was, continued correcting his neid for near as long a feries of years together as Lucan lived, and yet died with a strong opinion that it was imperfect still. Lucan had lived to his age, the Pharfalia without doubt would have made another kind of figure, than it now does, notwithstanding the difference to be found in the Roman language, between the times of Nero and Auguftus.

It must be owned he is in many places obfcure and hard, and therefore not so agreeable, and comes short of the purity, fweetnefs, and delicate propriety of Virgil. Yet it is still univerfally agreed among both ancients and moderns, that his genius was wonderfully great, but at the fame time too haughty and headftrong to be governed by art; and that his ftyle was like his genius, learned, bold, and lively, but withal too tragical and blustering.

I am by no means willing to compare the Pharfalia to the Æneid; but I must say with St. Evremont, that for what purely regards the elevation of thought, Pompey, Cæfar, Cato, and Labienus, fhine much more in Lucan, than Jupiter, Mercury, Juno, or Venus, do in Virgil. The ideas which Lucan has given us of these great men are truly greater, and affect us more fenfibly, than those which Virgil has given us of his deities: The latter has clothed his gods with human infirmities, to adapt them to the capacity of men : The other has raised his heroes fo, as to bring them into competition with the gods themselves. In a word,

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